


Demonic Downtime

by Aleph (Immatrael), EarthScorpion



Series: Ascensions and Transgressions [2]
Category: Exalted
Genre: F/F, Role-Playing Game, Roleplay Logs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 20:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13748952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immatrael/pseuds/Aleph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthScorpion/pseuds/EarthScorpion
Summary: What evils do the Infernal Exalted entertain themselves with in their free time? Sometimes it's unfinished business. But at other times... well, even the princes of Hell have holidays. A prelude toAscensions and Transgressionsproper, bridging the gap between Keris's first mission and her transfer to the Southwest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Aleph)  
> (EarthScorpion)  
> OOC conversation such as dice rolling and Charm declaration has largely been removed. Where it has been left in, however - humorous comments, particularly impressive rolls in either direction, malicious gloating, etc - it is enclosed in ((double brackets)). Text has been cleaned up with regards to spelling and grammar errors, as well as minor variations in phrasing, but is mostly untouched.

Keris has finally coaxed Sasi into doing her mind-probing, and so they gather together in one of Keris’ (totally unused) meditation chambers. The white walls are tall and plain.

“I will stop if you ask me to,” Sasi says, a trifle morosely. “I don’t really want to be doing this to you, but you asked for it.”

Keris takes a breath - real air, for once - and winds her hands into her hair. There are apples and chalcanth waiting on a table just outside the door. If this is going to hurt - even if it gets her the memories she wants - she intends to have comfort food waiting afterwards.

“Okay,” she says. “First question. What my parents were like.” She braces herself, but doesn’t close her eyes. Keeping them open is more of a distraction.

There’s a chiming noise in Keris’ head, like someone’s just flicked a wineglass. And then the pain spikes. It feels like someone’s stabbing her in the head. Like needles are being forced in through her ears and eyes and nose and mouth, and they’re poking around inside.

((Roll Conviction))

And then

_ a big broad shouldered man, a giant of a man, with paler skin, his back turned to her, lit by the red of the forge. he turns and shouts at her, about how she’s not meant to come in here, it isn’t safe, and then sweeps her up in his arms and carries her, talking to her more gently before he leaves her with an older boy, maybe ten or so. _

_ a darker skinned woman, darker than keris, almost far-south black who’s tall and thin and wears a pretty gold necklace around her long neck bounces her up on her knee while she talks to another woman. _

_ she’s tiny, and carried in a sling on someone’s back. the broad shouldered man and the woman kiss, and carry her to the river, to dump her and while she’s crying anoint her forehead with ash. _

_ the pounding of metal and she counts the chimes, her mother telling her the numbers for each hit. _

((Conviction 3. Uh. Fail.))

Keris screams, tears leaking from her eyes.  She staggers back, vaguely aware of more mundane pain - oh, right, she’s yanked a few hairs out. She waves at Sasi to stop, breathing hard, and collapses against the wall.

She sits there for quite a long time, resting her head against the cool marble. Her ears are ringing faintly, and her head is pounding. But she can still remember the images. Their faces.

She opens her eyes, and flinches. Sasi is looking more morose than ever, and seems unsure of whether or not to offer assistance.

“W-” Keris croaks, and reaches out through the door with a shaking hair-tendril to snag a vial of chalcanth. It burns down her raw throat, but the rush of energy makes her feel a bit better.

“We’re... no’ doing tha’ ‘gain today,” she forces out. “Or. Tomorrow, either. But...” and now the tears leaking from her eyes have a different cause; not just from the lingering pain. “You saw them. Didn’t you? Saw them.”

Sasi nods simply while Keris swallows painfully. There were other memories too. They were all crammed in together. Faces she couldn’t remember, ever. Plucked out of her skull and she got to see them now, like for the first time ever.

She holds her hair out limply for a hug, more for her own comfort than to reassure Sasi. Though if it does that too, it’s certainly a nice side-benefit.

Sasi sweeps her up in her arms, and cradles the shorter woman to her chest. Keris clings to her, barely enjoying the fact that their height difference means she gets to rest her head on Sasi’s bosom when they hold each other like that. “I’m sorry,” Sasi whispers. “I... I wouldn’t let anyone do that to me.”

“S’kay,” Keris mumbles. “Worth it, to see them. To remember.” She frowns. “Not looking forward to the next time, though. Think I’ll, uh. Forget about the questions past that one. Just...” she winces again, pressing a hand to her throbbing eye. “Just where I’m from. Where it was.”

“... maybe give it a week or so,” she decides, and reaches for the apples.

Keris eats _all the apples_.

It is in fact twelve screams of the tomescu until she feels ready to try again - and she can’t help but stop her hair flicking nervously as she faces Sasi again. She has a strip of leather to hold onto this time; unwilling to yank any more hair out while spasming.

“Are you sure?” Sasi asks again, in the white room again.

Keris nods jerkily. “Yeah. Do it before I change my mind and chicken out again. This question is the only other one I need.” She swallows. “Where was I from?”

((Roll Conviction not to chicken out))   
((3 dice, 3 SUX! HAH! THANK YOU, DICE FAIRIES!))

Keris swallows. The pain comes. And then;

_ “are you heading to huzei, dear?” _

_ “yes. i need to talk to the coal trader. it’s a hassle, but the last batch was low quality. the iron is flawed.” _

_ “i see. can you look after keris... no, no. i understand.” _

_ “i’ll be back tomorrow. i love you.” _

_ someone kisses keris on the forehead, and she mutters “‘ove you.” _

_ the river is high on its banks, and they’re singing songs to the god of the river which runs through baisha, trying to get him to lower the level and save them rain for the dry season. she’s nudged forwards, holding her garland of flowers, and totters forwards to cast them into the river. _

((So, Keris is from a village called Baisha, and Huzei was... probably the nearest market town))

She sags, gasping. It... hurt very slightly less this time. Maybe because she knew it was coming, and how.

... oh. She snapped the leather cord. And that was blood ape leather, too. Never mind, then. She takes a vial of chalcanth blindly and gratefully from Sasi and downs it.

“Baisha,” she whispers. “Wow, okay. Not... doing that again, ‘less it’s really, _really_ ‘portant. But. Yeah. Baisha. And Huzei. Was a place. People were going for coal. And trading.”

Sasi shakes her head. “Never heard of it,” she says.

Keris nods tiredly. “Dulmea? The maps,” she requests. Her coadjutor passes them out - the good ones of the Scavenger Lands, with all the trade routes and market towns noted down. If Huzei is anywhere in the Scavenger Lands, it’ll be on these somewhere. It’s just a matter of looking. Through all of them. At the really fine print and tiny lettering. Across the wide, wide, _wide_ expanse of maps.

... yeah, no. That’s not happening.

“Servant!” Keris calls. It’s a moment or two before an amphelisia enters the room, and Keris holds the maps out to it limply. “Get some of the servants to go over these,” she tells it. “Carefully. Find ‘Huzei’, and ‘Baisha’ if it’s on them anywhere. Don’t damage them.”

This might be a problem, Keris is loathe to admit. The Scavenger Lands are lousy with market towns.

She leaves it with the serfs, and hopes that they don’t find _too_ many towns with the same name. There can’t be too many that are also close to a village called Baisha based on a river, but it’ll be a pain to check more than two or three, and she has things that need doing.

((Ah, you may not be understanding the kind of maps which exist in this era. Yeah, you’re going to have market towns at the lowest level))   
((No Ordinance Survey or Doomsday Book here))   
((... I’m thinking that Huzei, as a market town, will hopefully be on there (if only as a dot along a trade route), and that she can then visit all the Huzeis and look at the nearby villages. She isn’t thinking that Baisha will be on the maps, but that will help pick out the right Huzei if there’s more than one. Or are you saying that Huzei would be too small, too?))   
((Though I suppose that depends on the roll results.))   
((Oh, right. They _might_ have it. Remember, Keris is looking at maps for an area about the size of Europe, looking at the market town level))   
((Yeah. Hmm. Roll for it, using the +1 map bonus?))   
((... though, uh, not sure what I roll.))   
((The demon rolls, I guess.)   
((Cog + Lore))   
((... uh. Hmm. I’ll assume it got given to some Cannibal Bureaucrats to pour over and read, since they actually, you know, like doing that. So, hmm. Int 4, Lore 3... though wouldn’t it be Investigation? Then again, that’s 3 too, so fine, w/e. +1 for the maps is 8. Aaaaand 1 sux. This is what you get for delegating, Keris. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET.))   
((It will take Keris quite a long time to realise that the maps are useless, as it will take them quite a while))   
((Hey! They’re not useless! Her ones of the Southwest; _they’re_ useless.))   
((These ones are merely unhelpful for this question.))   
((So, uh... what now?))   
((Hmm. Well, that seems to cover most of the in-play stuff, so... move onto generalised downtime descriptions and I get to spend ALL THE XP?))   
((Seriously, I think I'm going to wind up spending almost every point of banked mortal xp I have.))


	2. Chapter 2

As Testolagh is not here - and neither is Orange Blossom, although _apparently_ she’s been confirmed as not being in Malfeas - it’ll be a little bit hard to formally arrange Keris’ transfer. Sasi, however, assures Keris that she’s been talking to the Unquestionable, and has boldly claimed that the “throwing Nexus into chaos” thing was merely the two of them following the orders from several Unquestionable who have long desired these goals, among them Jacinct - who apparently had a personal grudge against Gen.

In fact, when the pair are invited to dine with him, on one of his towers raised above the layer, he cordially informs them both that he considers himself in their debt and that he will aim to help them in future. He particularly likes it when Keris tells him how she arranged Gen’s body over the gates of Firewander, and makes her repeat it several times.

Keris spends most of the evening blushing fiercely and reminding herself that no matter how pretty his voice sounds, and no matter how handsome he is, and no matter how much like Her his Essence tastes, it is a very bad idea to flirt with an Unquestionable.

She still squeaks a lot, and has to keep an ear trained on Sasi at all times to avoid swooning.

In a meeting with Unquestionable Lilunu, Sasimana humbly and respectfully informs her that Keris has requested training in the arts of sorcery from her, and that she intends to take her to some islands some way from An Teng - for she has shown some skill in the magics of the Great Mother, and that will allow them to study in peace while also allowing Sasi to get back in touch with her organisation and get on with her missions.

Unquestionable Lilunu agrees that this is a very good idea, and taking both hands, she kisses Sasi on the brow. She does the same to Keris.

“Congratulations,” she says to Keris, softly. “You are becoming multitudes.” She kisses her on the brow, right on the caste mark, which flares to the touch.

Keris gasps, feeling her souls stir. Echo’s silent laughter ripples across her mind along with Dulmea’s gasp, and she hears the infant - Rathan, she’s named him, in honour of her friend - murmur quietly in his sleep.

“Th-thank you, honoured Lilunu,” she says, bowing low.

A few sleeping (with Sasi) cycles later, the two of them are travelling again. This time, they’re not going light. They have a full suite of demon servants and baggage, because they’re heading to a fairly safe location.

Apparently, there is a place known to the Reclamation which was originally built as a Shogunate seaside getaway. The jungle has reclaimed it, but the manse is still intact, and is known to the Lintha - and used as a base sometimes. Sasi knows of its location, so it’ll just be the two of them there. The two of them, their demon servants, and yes, maybe some demon-blooded pirates if they drop by.

It is five days on agata-back across Cecelyne, and then a week from the hidden desert-entrance of silver sand which spills out from a cove on another island. They don’t rush. The sea here is shallow and often choked with Sargasso, and Keris realises to her great amusement that she can leap from the back of an agata into the water.

And then they come to the jungle-choked island, built on the flanks of a volcano, and the ruined choked white-stone buildings cropping from its flank - and the one, intact structure in a cove with the gleaming roof of adamant, overlooking a white sand beach.

((omg I get to do my sorcery sacrifices yesssss))

Sasi is, Keris quickly finds, as strict a teacher as she is meticulous a planner. She meditates, purifies her body, sinks to the bottom of the ocean for hours on end and reads the texts that Sasi shows her. She watches Sasi cast example spells, marvelling at the power and majesty of her aura as she does.

And she learns about the Trials of Sorcery. One by one. Sasi had said that it would change her. She hadn’t mentioned that some of those changes had already happened.

She learns about Humility.

_ she remembers kneeling whenever an adult passed by, scrubbing her knuckles raw to clean the steps and cupboards. she remembers reciting thanks for her owner’s generosity by rote; the words black and bitter in her mouth. _

_ she remembers huddling in gutters as the rain poured down around her, her stomach aching with need, shivering as the water soaked through her blanket and the smell of the sewers lingered on her. _

_ she remembers lying there on the cold floor of the prison and knowing that she was going to die, and worse than die. that she was helpless. that she was powerless. _

_ that she was nothing. _

She learns about Tutelage.

_ she remembers dulmea adopting her, showing her the ways of the angyalkae. she remembers tea ceremonies and harp lessons, gentle guidance and good advice. _

_ she remembers ogi, and dependent love, and helpless devotion, and the understanding that love is a part of pain and pain is a part of love, and the two can never be separated. _

_ she remembers sasi teaching her, correcting her, guiding her. she remembers aid in matasque, help in nexus. she remembers patient explanations of what and why and where and when and who. _

She learns about Journeys.

_ she remembers screams, and tears, and helpless confusion. she remembers baisha fading into the distance, and the noise of the city, and terror and grief and loss. _

_ she remembers silver sand under a black sky, cold air and a scorching furnace. she remembers games of gateway over five days of travel and an alien landscape stretching out before her. _

_ she remembers icy rivers and rice fields and the white walls of kataran. she remembers being a stranger in a strange land, alone and without any aid or allies, sent to accomplish something all by herself. _

She learns about Fear.

_ she remembers facing kasseni and knowing the woman for what she was - mortal, lesser; weak. she remembers triumphing over the slaver who destroyed her once, and bringing her back home as a broken trophy. _

_ she remembers the mad, mocking laughter of the yidak in the tomb. she remembers the ever-shifting corpus, the hate-filled eyes as it chased her. she remembers the feel of it as it dissolved under her with her final blow. _

_ she remembers rat. _

And finally, she learns about Sacrifice.

There are no memories here. No flashbacks. She stands in a place between places, poised on a wire the width of a human hair.

She turns.

To her left is Malfeas. Her townhouse is spread out before her, the doors open and welcoming. Her servants kneel in rows at the sides of the corridors; their heads bowed, and a fanfare is playing - one for her. Sasi stands there; more beautiful than ever, in robes that look like spun shadow and silver thread. She watches Keris with patient eyes.

She turns.

To her right is Nexus. It’s the den behind the ivy... but it’s not the kids who stand there. It’s Rat. Not as she last saw him; drained of colour and tasting of death, with a red scarf around his throat. It’s Rat as he was; as he used to be, dressed in the patched-together rags of a street rat. He watches Keris with calm resolve.

She stands; Keris alone, between the Scourge and the street rat. Between the Princess and the pauper. Between the Goddess and the gutter-scum. She can _feel_ the two mindsets, the two _hers_. She’s felt them before. She’s shifted between them before, and felt the jarring jolt of the shift.

She’s never felt them quite like this, though.

So. This was what Sasi meant.

She stands there for what might be a second, or an eternity, pulled in two different directions.

But eventually, she makes her choice. She turns to face Rat. She looks into his eyes, just as she did on the day she killed him. He meets her gaze evenly, without accusation. Just with solemn warning of what this means.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Keris, Once of Firewander.

And steps backward, into her palace.

Keris opens her eyes. The quiet waters on the beach are lapping at her legs. She feels totally different. She feels completely the same. It’s like she’s just stepped through a door and now she’ll never know what was on the other side because it’s locked behind her.

She sits there for a while, letting the wavelets play around her legs. Finally, she gets to her feet and turns. It’s no great surprise to find Sasi waiting a little further up the beach. Keris can’t find any words to describe how she feels, but then... she doesn’t really have to, does she? Sasi already knows.

“Okay,” she says softly. “I’m ready. Teach me.”

It’s a busy holiday for both of them. Sasi takes advantage of the opportunity to correct some of Keris’s more... glaring missteps in talking to people, and shows her how to get along better and guide people into doing what she wants them to. She gives her a basic, Keris-level introduction to how economics and politics work - oh, Keris will never be a bureaucrat, but she at least understands a bit more about what she’s breaking and why by the end of the holiday. And the area they’re holidaying in all but requires Keris to learn the basics of Firetongue, even if she speaks it with a strange accent that Sasi laughingly describes as “Lintha-Nexan”.

((Sigh. Keris. You can in fact put Sasi through a full wardrobe try out. And she can introduce you to Realm fashions. She brought weaver demons along, too, so she can make them in silk))

Sasi isn’t the only one teaching Keris - and Keris isn’t the only one learning, for that matter. Dulmea shows her the methods she used to kill quietly and from a distance in her dreams - the lead shots and thrown needles and subtle knives hidden in flowing hair. Keris isn’t quite as quick a study with such methods as she is with more immediate means of killing, but she takes to them well nonetheless.

And she puts Sasi through her own more physical paces. The terrified look on Sasi’s face at the thought of the Emissary is one that Keris is keen not to see again, and she alternates between prodding and rewarding the woman to get back into the physical fitness of a trained Dynast; able to run swift and sure when the situation calls for it. She’s not a front-line fighter, and never will be, but now she has a better chance of getting _away_ from a battlefield as it develops.

It’s two months before they get back to Malfeas, and Keris wishes they could have stayed longer. They _do_ leave a sizeable cult to Sasi on an island near the one they were staying at. Or at least, Sasi does. Keris mostly got to tag along and watch as part of her lessons.

Naan is back in town when they arrive, and Keris wastes no time in rubbing his face in the collapse of Nexus and the shiny new toys she got there. They’re soon back to their carousing; knocking into bars and beating challengers into submission, sparring with each other as she gets the hang of how to use her knives. It’s great fun, and it’s invigorating to really push her limits and leave herself tired and sore at the end of the day from exertion. She still isn’t able to out-arm-wrestle Naan, but he’s built like a blood ape, and she can at least make him work for it.

She also gets a few more piercings. Not on her body, but on her scalp - which is painful and irritating and would require bits of her hair to be shaved off if not for the help of a stomach bottle bug. The ability to tie lengths of razor-sharp wire into her locks, however; anchored to her scalp just as much as her hair, makes the hassle _entirely_ worth it. Especially since she can attach _glittery shiny threads_ to the tiny hoops as well, and run them through her braids to make them _sparkly_.

((keris gonna keris))

Sasi, by contrast, turns out to already have the full set to allow her to wear all the green jade fern-like jewelry in its proper place. Apparently it’s entirely common for that kind of piercing in the Dynasty. Keris likes that. Quite a lot. Among other things, it makes her kisses taste like fresh spring rain. It also adds more colour to her, because it isn’t just black or white or silver.

The fact that it turns out that when you wear every single piece in the set, you can coax plants and make them flower on demand and grow fruit is only the nicest discovery on the jungle island.

And finally, she checks up on Kasseni.

It’s been two months since the woman last saw her, and with the addictive toxins of the Great Mother still in her veins, Keris suspects the withdrawal will be biting deep.

Kasseni is in quite a state when Keris gets back. Her hair has fallen out, and her face is grey with stress. She’s gained twenty years, and she’s painfully thin. Her hands and feet shake with palsy, and even if she wasn’t chained, she probably couldn’t stand.

She’s weak. Pathetic. Old. And Keris is a princess of the Green Sun.

“Y-you,” Kasseni stammers as Keris flows in, young and beautiful and agile and free. “Y-you.” She holds out a shaking hand. “I... I kn-knew it. Y-you w-wouldn’t let... let me die. Why? Demons. Everywhere. In my flesh. L-let me die.”

Keris tilts her head, considering. And her shadow rises up and over her, leaving her smaller, with brown hair and scars and a burned-out brand on her arm, which she lifts to shows Kasseni. The shadows squirm, and the searing undoes itself, showing - just for a moment - the mark that once lay there, dark against the dusky skin.

And then they dissolve, and Keris is the Princess once more, holding two curving blades of bone-porcelain in a flicker of bloody lightning. Her eyes stay the same throughout. Grey and sharp and pitiless.

“No,” she says softly.

And the door swings shut behind her.

The bangle that adorns her arm when she leaves is one of black lead and silver; the two materials intertwined in a beautiful braided pattern. A single blood-red pearl the size of Keris’s little fingernail is set into it, lying just above the hollow of her wrist.

The cell is empty and silent in her wake.

The dead old woman, her chest torn open, is thrown to the kennels later. The hunting dogs tear the corpse apart with relish. They haven’t had human before.


End file.
